I’m not so concerned about the generally wacky, anti-fact beliefs of conservatives. The much bigger problems come from the assumptions of the mainstream press when it comes to economic issues. It is there that we get the unquestioned framing of the oligarchs. Take for example, the inflation target of the Federal Reserve. A few decades ago, a four percent inflation target was considered just fine. Now it is two percent. In Europe it is “less than” two percent. And the actual inflation in this country is more like 1%. Moderate inflation is good for employment. But low inflation is good for the owners of capital. So what do we get? The inflation that hurts workers and enriches the already rich.

The Fed is supposed to have a dual mandate: keep inflation low and employment high. But in practice, they keep inflation low and don’t much worry about employment unless things are so terrible that the unemployed are coming at them with pitchforks. I never get tired of Matt Yglesias’ remark about this, “If the unemployment and inflation rates were reversed, would the Fed do something about it?” It’s a rhetorical question, because we all know that it would. We can’t allow the bonds of the rich to decrease in value!

Dean Baker highlighted the way that the media frame this, The IMF’s Data Disagree With the NYT on the State of Russia’s Economy. The New York Times published an article, Russia Economy Worsens Even Before Sanctions Hit. You may well have already heard about the terrible Russian economy. Such stories have become a genre. But there isn’t much too them.

They all depend upon the idea that inflation is the worst thing for an economy. Russia has moderately high inflation—currently 6.2%. But this is not disastrous—even for the rich bond holders. But it is apparently pretty good for workers. The unemployment rate in Russia is currently 5.4%. So things are no so bad for Russian workers, but according to the Times, things are bad in a general way because bond holders aren’t making as much money as they think they should.

What’s more, Baker noted that the inflation rate has actually improved:

So things have improved in Russian since 2008 and unemployment is low. But the media define this as a bad economy because the oligarchs don’t think they are making enough money. There is “objective” American journalism!

Andrea mentioned watching the beginning of a film in which Telly Savalas played a Chinese man, Fanfare for a Death Scene. Well, I had to see that! To me, Savalas will always been the Tootsie Pop sucking, “Who loves ya, baby?” spouting police detective in Kojak. I’ve seen him in other things, so I knew he could act. But I was expecting that his role in this film would be a racist outrage that was good kitschy fun.

The film itself was made for television in 1964. It’s a Cold War artifact where the main character, Stryker (played by Richard Egan), is convinced that all our concern about the Soviet Union and Red China is misplaced. There is actually a Mongol leader who is, “The smartest, most dangerous, most vicious man in the world today.” His name is Elchidai Khan. Cue the dramatic music. Khan, of course, is played by Telly Savalas. And other than giving him an outrageous Genghis Khan mustache, they don’t do much to make him look Mongolian. Overall, it’s a downright positive portrayal.

Khan is presented as a demigod. He has video cameras planted seemingly everywhere, including Stryker’s palatial home. So he is always a half dozen steps ahead of Stryker and the American government. Most of the time we see Khan is as he watches what is going on in the plot via video. He manages to be defeated at the end, but only in his efforts to get the schizophrenic nuclear scientist (played with one-note intensity by Burgess Meredith). Khan, of course, is miles, if not nations, away.

And given this ending, I wonder whether Fanfare for a Death Scene wasn’t intended to be the pilot for a series. I can well see why it wasn’t picked up. The good guys are all dull as dishwater. Today, they might make the show focusing on the bad guys. That would be pretty interesting. Khan spends pretty much all of his time laughing to himself about the chess game that he is clearly winning against the west. He has two beautiful and dangerous women around him too. One of them is played by Tina Louise, Ginger Grant on Gilligan’s Island. And it wasn’t until seeing this movie that I realized just how beautiful she was.

The Stryker character works well enough. But I was especially struck with how the writers decided to make the audience realize he was a good guy. In addition to being a secret agent, he is the head of a company. And speaking to his managers, he said, “Four new plants means 4,000 new jobs… Gentlemen, our job is to provide more jobs for more people… You take care of the working men and they take care of production.” (As you can see, much of the dialog in the film is weak.) Can you imagine that kind of pandering to the working class today? Now it would just be assumed that a rich man was good—as long as he didn’t do something like kick a dog.[1] Hell, corporate raider Gordon Gekko was meant to be a villain in 1987, yet most Americans saw him as a hero.

But the film is otherwise hopeless. The only reason to watch it is to see Telly Savalas’ Mongol lord. And you can see an almost nine minute long scene if you you skip to 47:15. It is quite charming. As for the remaining hour: don’t waste your time.

Update (16 April 2014 7:24 pm)

I first started writing about the film because the trumpet has a central part in it. And there is a famous trumpet player in it who I immediately recognized as Al Hirt. It’s actually surprising that I recognized him, because I’m not a huge fan. But he was great:

[1] My understanding is that this would make him a “dog villain.” The idea is that the alpha villain comes into town and kills the sheriff. The beta villain comes into town and kills the deputy. The third villain (more or less representative of the rest of the gang), comes into town and kicks a dog. To most people, that would make the dog villain the worst of the three.

Ari Berman is an excellent political writer over at The Nation. And on Monday, he asked a really good question, Republicans Used to Support Voting Rights—What Happened? He looked at at a new book by Todd Purdum, An Idea Whose Time Has Come. And he provided a little rundown of the Republican Party. He noted that in the past a number of prominent Republicans were big advocates for civil and voting rights. But aggravatingly, he never answers his own question, “What happened?”

Luckily, I already know the answer. I addressed it last year, I Love Democracy. Conservatives of all stripes have always had deep unease with the idea of democracy. This is due to the fact that conservatism is an elite political philosophy. And as such, the philosophy is deeply unpopular. Have you ever looked at those two-dimensional graphs of political ideology? The opposite of “libertarian” is “populism.” The conservative approach to this unpleasant fact is first to manipulate popular opinion. (See: What’s the Matter With Kansas?) And their second approach is to stop the poor from voting.

Last year, Corey Robin noticed a very telling bit of conservative apologetics, I Am Not a Racist. I Just Hate Democracy. In The New Republic, Sam Tanenhaus wrote, Why the GOP Is and Will Continue to be the Party of White People. In it, he argued that the modern conservative movement had borrowed liberally from the arguments of the 19th century slavery apologists, most especially John C Calhoun. Unsurprisingly, modern conservatives were not too keen on this being pointed out.

So Jonah Goldberg and Ramesh Ponnuru took to National Review to defend themselves. Now, you know how I feel: the conservative movement is deeply committed to racism. It is about all they’ve got. But I understand that actual conservatives (especially smart ones like Ramesh Ponnuru) have to avoid seeing that. But in their response they provide what Robin calls “a fascinating moment of right-wing self-revelation.” In arguing that they really aren’t racist, they take it as given that being against democracy is no big deal:

They are saying that they would have no problem with Tanenhaus if he simply called them elitist who are against democracy. They don’t see the criticism in saying that they “resist, ignore, or even overturn the will of the electoral majority.” That’s astounding.

The reason that the 1960s had some prominent Republicans who supported civil and voting rights is very simple: there were liberals in the Republican Party. The conservatives in both parties at that time were not keen on voting rights. And all those conservatives are now in the Republican Party. They aren’t for expansive civil rights because they were never for them. Party labels don’t always matter. But today, “Republican” and “conservative” are synonymous.

On this day in 1924, the great arranger-composer Henry Mancini was born. In some ways, he was a hack like all movie composers. He pumped out work at a furious pace. He recorder over 90 albums. He was nominated for 18 Academy Awards, four of which he won. And he was nominated for 72 Grammy Awards, twenty of which he won. Compositionally, he was known for his clever melodies. And that says something for a profession that has moved steadily away from a focus on that aspect of music.

What I most admire him for is his arranging. All professional arrangers do a good job with creating interesting harmonies and effective counterpoint. But what separates the professionals from the masters is how they combine the timbres of the various instruments. Mancini was particularly good in his use of woodwinds. The flute is especially prominent here. As an instrument, it is kind of boring—lacking a great deal of character. Maybe because he played the flute, he just tried harder. But the extensive use of the woodwinds gives his arrangements more style than the standard saxophone and brass section provides.

Because of the breadth of his work, we can’t really appreciate Mancini with just a single song. So here is a playlist of fifteen pieces. They aren’t all by him, but they are all his arrangements. The list does not include the “Pink Panther Theme” or the “Baby Elephant Walk.” But you’ve probably heard them more than enough for a lifetime. Or maybe not.

Happy birthday Henry Mancini!

The Israel-Palestine conflict is a difficult one for me and for most liberals. We want to support Israel because of, well, the Holocaust. But the country is currently behaving rather badly. And the Palestinians are clearly an oppressed people, but the terrorists acts are hard to support. But in general, I tend to side with the Palestinians because they are currently the weak party. What’s more, as Juan Cole has noted, not only were the Israelis active terrorists before they got to their current powerful position, “One of the arguments Israeli politicians give for allowing Israeli squatters to keep the Palestinian land in the West Bank that they have usurped is that attempting to move them back out would produce violence.”

One person I depend upon to shine a light on the conflict is Eric Alterman. He is certainly not anti-Israel, but he’s more than willing to look seriously at what’s going on. And in this regard, last week at The Nation, he wrote, Israel Celebrates a Return to the Status Quo in the Middle East. The perspective of the article is summed up in its subtitle, “Many Israelis, Netanyahu included, were never serious about seeking a two-state solution in the peace negotiations.” It’s very depressing.

Basically, he argues that the status quo is in the best short-term interests of Israel. No one in power is really interested in making any kind of a deal, so it is very easy to sabotage. And that’s exactly what Housing Minister Uri Ariel did when he approved over 700 new homes in the illegal Gilo settlement. All the talk of a two-state solution is just lip service. It is in the service of keeping American and European allies supporting the government.

I wonder how good a long-term strategy this is, however. Just in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a shift in American opinion about Israel. It isn’t that people have stopped supporting the country. But there is push back against what has become a kind of standard conservative belief that whatever is good for Israel is good for America. People are questioning that. And going along with it is the idea that Israel is a real pain. They are like the crazy brother who you try to keep out of trouble. And if I were Netanyahu, I would be worried about this growing realization.

It just isn’t much of a step from accepting that Israel isn’t good by definition to realizing that their treatment of the Palestinians really is quite awful. I don’t think that Israel is any worse in its position than any other government would be. Governments tend to push whatever power they have. And if it were a thousand years ago, this conflict would have ended long ago with a genocide. You can read all about it in the Old Testament. But what’s going on is the same kind of thing, just done at a very slow pace so as not to upset Israel’s allies. It isn’t a genocide, though; rather it is just a way to slowly displace the Palestinians from their land, one settlement (One house!) at a time.

Ultimately, Israel needs the goodwill of the rest of the world—most especially of the United States. I think they should bear that in mind, because their long-term security depends upon it. Giving in a bit to the Palestinians now might be a great deal ten or twenty years from now.

I have a natural tendency towards political incorrectness. So I bristle a bit at turning victims into heroes, as we have on this day, one year after the cruel bombing of the Boston Marathon. The truth is that people die tragically every day and I just can’t bear the burden of caring more than I do in a general sense about all the victims of injustice who suffer constantly, often needlessly. But there was one victim of the bombing last year that I feel a special connection to.

Lu Lingzi was a 23-year-old mathematics graduate student at Boston University. She was focusing on statistics, which only makes her that much cooler. Apparently, she was halfway through her qualifying exams when she was killed. According to one of her teachers, Associate Professor Daniel Weiner, she was in the top quarter of her class. He said her work had improved a great deal in the last year, most likely because her better grasp of English was allowing her to demonstrate her actual knowledge.

Even more than most areas of math, I think that people don’t understand what statistics is all about. It requires a very unusual way of looking at individual events. It is a way of understanding how a system works without knowing how the system works. Indeed, that is what quantum mechanics is all about. We don’t know—and probably never will—what causes reality to work the way it does. But we understand the statistics and that tells us an enormous amount about reality.

Lu Lingzi was from Shenyang in the northeast of China. Her parents still live there. They flew into Boston to attend a memorial service for her last night. They have started an organization, The Lingzi Foundation. Part of this involves a group of people running in the Boston Marathon to raise money. Sadly (from my perspective), the foundation doesn’t even make mention of her interest in mathematics.

Of course, I don’t want to wedge Lu Lingzi into a box. She does seem to have been as complicated as anyone. But there is shockingly little information about her. I do know that she played the piano—but not much more. And I think that’s part of the problem with these remembrances. The press isn’t much interested in the people other than as symbols of a tragedy. But I consider her a fellow traveler. The world was deeply harmed by the loss of a young person who loved music and math.

I just did my taxes. Well, I did a rough calculation and then filled out an extension. And as usual, I am amazed at how much I pay. It isn’t in absolute terms that I’m amazed however. It is in relative terms—relative to how much the super rich are paying. Despite the fact that I made almost nothing last year, I am still paying roughly the same rate that Mitt Romney is paying. Actually, I’m probably paying a substantially higher rate because I assume he went out of his way to pay more when people were looking.

It still amazes me that the American political party that most wraps itself in the flag is also the party that most complains about taxes. To them, apparently, tax avoidance is the most patriotic thing you can do. Mitt Romney said as much during the 2012 campaign. And sadly, Romney is one of the more reasonable Republicans. It gets much worse.

I do not believe in nationalism. It is generally a pox on the world. But I have a great fondness for my own country and for us as a people. I very much believe in our ideals. And as much as we screw up all the time, we try to do good. The government, on the other hand, has distinctly evil aspects to it. That doesn’t especially distinguish it from other governments. But there is a wider gap between its rhetoric and its actions than I like.

In this regard, I am doubtless like most Americans. But there is a dysfunction among conservatives where many believe that if they don’t like what the government does, it is patriotic to be treasonous. The basis of this is the black & white mentality that claims that when a Democratic is in the White House, he is a tyrant and a socialist. Thus it is right and proper to threaten government officials with guns.

I’m not really talking about Cliven Bundy, though. He is more along the lines of a crank. He should have been arrested long ago and that would be that. But the reason he has power is of great concern. Fox News and other right wing media outlets have made him into a hero when he is anything but. He’s just a man who doesn’t want to pay his taxes.

I’m sure that I can find more things in the federal budget that I don’t like than Bundy can. One of the things I don’t like is how the BLM allows ranchers to graze their cattle at below market prices. Of course, in Bundy’s case, even that is too much. So it just steals it. And it isn’t the government that he’s stealing from; it’s the people; it’s America. The million dollars that he owes the government is a million dollars that doesn’t go to sick children. It’s a million dollars that doesn’t go for infrastructure improvements. It’s a million dollars that doesn’t go for security.

The people who protest this day are unpatriotic. And that’s fine. That’s the great thing about America: you are allowed to hate it. But don’t go around claiming to be patriotic while you dump all over the nation just because the government isn’t doing exactly what you think it should be doing. That’s being patriotic to some myth that you’ve constructed. America is a real place with a real government. And if you hate it, then at least admit that you aren’t a patriot.

Otherwise, smile as you sign that check to pay for the functioning of the American government and all of the important things that it does for all of us. Because that’s what patriots do.

On this day in 1707, Leonhard Euler was born. He was one of the greatest mathematicians ever. And that gives me an opportunity to discuss one of my favorite subjects: differential equations. I love them because they are such an obvious example of creativity in mathematics. Although courses are taught in them, there isn’t a lot to learn. Solving them is a highly intuitive thing, and people who are very good at them are like magicians.

Let’s consider the Cauchy–Euler equation. In its most common form, it looks like this:

What the dy/dx represents is the instantaneous trend line: the change of y relative to x. And the figure that looks like the square of that is the instantaneous trend line of the instantaneous trend line. Our job is to find the equation for y without without the differentials.

So how do we proceed? Well, this is a standard equation and we know exactly what to do. But that wasn’t true hundreds of years ago. And that’s where the magic comes in. I should note, however, that most differential equations have no solutions. Anyway, we proceed by making an assumption that:

Substituting this into the equation above causes all of the x terms to fall out and leaves us with a simple quadratic formula for m:

Of course, this equation is going to give us two roots (although they may be identical). And the roots may be real or imaginary (involving the square root of a negative number). In the second case you get exponential solutions. But the two real roots case provides an answer like this:

What all of this shows is that the process is a whole lot of intuition guided by experience. This is why I say that mathematics is at least as creative as art. People who don’t understand math tend to think it is about applying a bunch of rules. But if that were true, math would be simple. It is actually constrained creativity. And that’s true of any kind of art. Except with mathematics, the constraints are entirely internal. And with that, join me in saying…

Happy birthday Leonhard Euler!